


Like Thy Waters

by treeson



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Community: hermione_smut, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-10
Updated: 2010-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-10 12:19:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/466187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/treeson/pseuds/treeson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Contamination Room, thirty levels under the Ministry, three people have dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Thy Waters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Kendas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kendas/gifts).



> kendas, I hope you enjoy this as much as I did writing it. Thanks to allfaltering for pointing out embarrassing, horrid mistakes that would have left people screaming. Any mistakes left are all mine.

She gasped against his lips. While Blaise was slow and assured, a subtle heat that made her toes curl, Draco was fast and fiery, tongue pulling moans out of her like a hook. His hands found her face and Draco pulled her toward him, biting and teasing her lips.

She felt Blaise's hands on her, slow and light and full of confidence, running between her breasts and teasing her sides. They went to her hips, and she felt herself being shifted, her lower half pulled over Blaise's legs. She looked absurd, she knew, splayed over the two boys—men—like a harlequin romance novel cover.

"Sweet, isn't she, Draco," Blaise murmured, hands deftly slipping under her socks, pushing them down so he could get to the tender skin underneath.

Draco hummed in response, hand tangled in her hair, turning her head where he wanted as he learned the contours of her mouth with his tongue. She felt dizzy with all the sensations—the taste of smoky drink from Draco, overlaying Blaise's minty taste, Blaise lifting her leg, licking and kissing the delicate skin behind her knee, Draco slowing his kisses until she was burning alive like a phoenix.

She felt dizzy, even with her eyes closed. This was too strange, too _good_ , and she couldn't—hadn't felt this good since—

"Stop," she gasped, trying to push Draco away from her. But her hands were trapped between them and he wasn't listening. She shook her head, forcing his lips away from hers. "Stop, stop."

"It's alright, Hermione," Blaise murmured, lips making a track up her thigh. "No one will come out and find us."

Draco's eyes were black with lust, and he leaned forward, murmuring nonsensical soothing words against her neck. She groaned and pushed at him.

"No, _please_."

Draco pulled back, his eyes blinking back clarity, searching her face anxiously.

"Are you okay, Hermione?"

Hermione woke up, gasping, unable to breathe, unable to think, her excellent intellect shattered. The air she frantically inhaled was never enough; it tasted like slow asphyxiation, and in her bones she wanted. Oh, did she _want_.

"Sick," she whispered into the dark. She didn't like how her voice trembled. This wasn't her. She wasn't the girl to have naughty dreams about coworkers and men she despised. She shivered. Though Freud would make a convincing argument that this dream proved her latent sexual desire for Malfoy that had heretofore disguised itself as all-consuming hate, Hermione disagreed. Strenuously. The hatred in their relationship as enemies was mutual, and quite without latent anything, thank you. Blaise knew—he witnessed a number of their fights when Malfoy came down to the Department of Mysteries' doors to meet Blaise for lunch.

Relief made her sit up, and a _Lumos_ filled the contamination room with light. She looked at the observation window as she got off the cot, dumping her robes, which she'd been using as a blanket, off her legs. It was too late for anyone to be observing her, she hoped. _Was I moaning?_ The taste of disinfectant potion lingered in her mouth, disinfectant charms in her hair. She tasted it, smelled it, as she walked around the edge of the room. The cramps around her knees thanked her. Her thoughts prowled along the same path, rationalizing. This dream was just her subconscious' way of informing her to stop looking for support from Blaise. He was Draco's friend first and foremost. It would perhaps be beneficial to stop fraternizing with Blaise entirely if she wanted to stop fighting with Malfoy.

_Of course I want that,_ Hermione thought when she caught the hesitation in her thoughts. _I want to avoid that annoying wombat forever._ If she could find a way to make the Disillusionment Charm permanent, he would be the first person she'd use it on.

_Right,_ another side of her responded, the voice soft and insidious, like Blaise's fingers on her thighs, _that's why you need a new pair of knickers._

The Department of Mysteries' contamination room was famous for more than just its misleading name. In fact, it was better furnished than most of the Unspeakables' own homes, Hermione's included. With salary cuts competing with toupees and acid reducers as high fashion for department heads, most departments had taken a large cut. There were whispers of downsizing and interdepartmental memos were known to self-combust mid-flight from flying too fast with the latest gossip. In contrast, the C-Room was obscene in its wealth. Located twenty levels below the actual department itself, it had state of the art anti-self-harm wards, expensive unbreakable charms over everything, and a small squad of cleaning spells. It was self-supporting; air was pumped in by a small tree garden planted on the 'roof' that came through the vents at three and twelve o'clock and a self-contained fruit and vegetable garden charmed for all seasons. Though no one had ever spent more than a few months here before, Hermione could comfortably live here for five years without seeing anyone. A glass mosaic depicting shifting water scenes for calm dominated the far wall. Right now it showed an ocean scene; caught in an infinite loop of calm.

Hermione knew the ocean, though, and underneath that calm surface were shifting currents, thousands of tons of weight all shifting, all pulling, strong enough to drown the incautious. Grasping, tugging, just like the weight twisting in the pit of her stomach.

The room was large. Spacious. The observation window and the mile-high ceilings just gave it the feel of an empty church. But Hermione could see herself reflected in that thick glass and behind her the mosaic loomed like a noon shadow, natural and monstrous all at once. Even better, she looked like she'd just escaped one of Ron's pub crawls with life barely intact. It came from fighting her dreams, fighting to come back into reality. She looked smaller than she ever was outside this room.

And want tugged at her sleeves. It pointed out the circles under her eyes and her ragged nails and said, We can be friends, Hermione. We can be happy together. It's all what you want anyway. You're just selfish to draw it out this long.

She closed her eyes, opened her mouth as breathing through her nose became difficult. Suffocating weight sat on her tongue like a lazy child on the sofa. She thought of home, of her pillow nest on the sofa and the end table loaded with books. She thought of a nice glass of port, the silk briefs she'd stolen from Ron and wore underneath her _Arithmancy is Fun!_ shirt she'd won at a conference. She thought of the fire in the grate crackling, of warm hands sliding over her bare shoulders, lips enunciating dirty, gorgeous words into her thighs. Heat and fire and confidence like a warm bath filled her to the brim. It spilled over the edge and more. Her fingers curled around Blaise's bicep, her mouth opened to his distracted kiss as he watched Draco between her legs. She gasped without air as Draco and Blaise's eyes caught each other's, the mutual intent written in the air between them, along her body, her thighs splayed over broad, muscled shoulders. Draco lowered his head.

Want tugged at her and when she fought it sent her spinning in the currents, pulled one way to the next. Eventually she drowned.

Fourteen hours in the contamination room. Ten hours left.

*

A track of light carpet already disturbed the beige carpet in front of the water mosaic. Blaise didn't feel too bad adding to it with his own pacing. The C-Room. He hated the C-Room. It was glass hell, leagues under the earth's surface. Being this deep underground wasn't natural. There were _volcanoes_ down here, not to mention the demons and other nightmarish things that lived in the core. The C-Room was all about safety, containing any rogue Dark spells or infectious plagues—he remembered the zombie infection near miss of 2000 when he and four hundred other people had camped in this room for two months—before anything dangerous got out of the D.O.M. and finally researching what could happen if your robes were ripped while you examined a new species of Carnivorous Blood Boil Plague or, as most of the other Dumbs called it, zombies 2.0.

So far, four hours in, Blaise wasn't a zombie. Theoretically it relieved him. On another plane of thought, a more important plane, Blaise was more worried about The Dream. Any dreams of Hermione naked and Draco naked, Hermione and Draco naked together, with him naked too, really, bothered him more than any potential urge for the taste of fresh human meat.

Not that he was _opposed_ to the naked part, or the naked together part. But, but, but there were all kinds of problems with it. All kinds. Give him a moment, he'll think of them. He rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, the frenzied thoughts shaking his self-control. He reached the north wall, the end of the mosaic, and did an about face and paced to the south wall. Waves of blue and grey glass undulated and waved along beside him, companion to his thoughts.

First, there was the fact that Draco was his best friend. _Huge_ problem right there. You just didn't combine personal relationships with work relationships. You just didn't. All sorts of bad mojo right there, and hellacious on future networking. What if they end up unable to talk to each other without screaming, what if they both blame you, what if they set fire to the other's house, who would you post bail for? No, no—entirely too many chances for implosion.

He stopped between north and south. The waves bobbed merrily beside his head, _hello! hello!_ This room. It had gotten to him. He didn't normally think like this. He had logical thoughts. He was rational. He prided himself on keeping cool in the toughest situations. He hadn't even blinked when he looked down after strong-arming the Carnivorous Blood Boil Plague back into its safety cauldron and found a rip in his work robes. That kind of calm was what the Dumb officials looked for in Unspeakables.

This damn room made him dream of Hermione's nails. Short, curved into a round, blunt edge. Sharp when digging into his shoulders. This room made him dream of her legs wrapped around him, her ankles crossed on his back. Even underneath him, she had the weight she had in life. Unyielding, strong, a hundred year oak in a hurricane. She held him to her like she held her opinions, without backing down, without an ounce of self-preservation or capitulation to status quo. Best of all, her hand around Draco's cock unable to keep up the tempo of Blaise's thrusts into her.

Stop, Blaise thought. A sharp sting as he pinched the inside of his elbow brought him out of the dream. Fourteen seconds. He'd slept fourteen seconds. This was what his mind came up with.

Merlin was she tight around him, too. That as much as the shock of it had pulled him out of the dream. He could have ordered her out of a catalogue, she fit him so perfectly.

Second, Hermione would _Avada_ him dead if she found out what he was thinking about her. They were barely friends—and that 'barely' had become 'not really' a little over a month ago. He missed the almost-friendship a little. The rest of Dumb, made up of the brightest minds of the century, were full out stupid, hence the nickname. Hermione was smart, though. She didn't play politics, or office romances, though from what Blaise had heard during canteen gossip hour, she'd finally accepted a date with that prick Boot, though he'd been panting around her ankles for years. So maybe she played office romance now—but before she hadn't. She'd been funny, in an awkward, condescending way that became funnier when he understood that she wasn't condescending _him_ , and she was always quick to point out the upside when he was stuck on his failures during an experiment.

Most especially, she didn't let Draco walk all over her. He liked that _a lot_. He was hard just thinking about it. Uncomfortable, really. He should just sit down, let Hermione take care of him with that amazing, _fantastic_ mouth of hers that sent Draco ranting for a week after one of her retorts. Her smile grew bigger when he slid to the floor right there—Nimue, the cot was too far away. Her lips grew plumper, shone when she licked them as her hands went for his zip. Draco's hands were quick to take advantage of her arse in the air. He had a fetish for it. A Hermione Granger's Arse Fetish. Blaise watched Draco's hands slide over it, candle-flame white compared to her sun-touched brown, and then she engulfed his cock and he really, _really_ didn't care about any other fetishes than his.

Oh Merlin. I'm doing it again. Just stop, stop thinking about her.

"This instant!"

Blaise jumped at the voice, wide eyes glancing around, before realizing it was his. The waves bobbed, bobbed, bobbed at him.

This room. It had to be this room.

*

Draco stared at the waterfall. The waterfall stared back.

Draco snorted. "Seen too much magic, haven't you," he said, shaking his head as he turned away from it. That was what annoyed him about departments like Dumb. They thought they were so much better than other departments like, say, the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, where the _real_ work to protect the world went on, but for all their intelligence and superiority, they did something like give a large magical object self-awareness by keeping it near powerful spells. Draco had learned never to do this by age thirteen, yet the Department of Mysteries, with their top .02% and top secret clearance that not even a senior Auror could get if he happened to also be a reformed Death Eater—or son of a man who helped _Imperio_ a former Unspeakable, or destroyed a large portion of it during an ambush, or, you know, whatever—had let this large block of glass gain awareness. Right, _smart_. He tutted. Surprising it hadn't blown up the whole place, actually.

Good mini-bar, though.

He gave the vegetable garden a distrustful examination. No telling what kind of mutations had developed by being so close to a self-aware object this large for so long. He was aware of the mosaic following his movements through the large room—the occasional overblown splash of grey and blue tiles here, the quickly hidden spot of white, the scattering of turquoise when he turned his head suddenly. The cot: short, thin, and entirely inappropriate for his posture. The camp kitchen: self-explanatory. There were four loveseats, two coffee tables, one squat bookcase with too many coffee books. No entertainment but picture books. A wide mirror—the Observation Mirror, he'd been told—presumably watching from the wall opposite the mosaic. No privacy wherever he went, except the small loo. No wonder Blaise had come out of here last Saturday weak and shaky.

What most people, including the oh so intelligent Dumbs, apparently, didn't understand was that giving a magical object self-awareness meant it got _bored._ And what did bored little children do? Join the Death Eaters, for example, or make odes to Granger's Perfect Bum. A hand slipped over his shoulder, traced down his arm as she rested her chin on his shoulder.

"I found it quite funny," Hermione told him, "considering."

Draco hung his head. It pushed his back into her breasts—she stepped back to accommodate. It _felt_ real enough, but he bet if he turned around she wouldn't be there.

He turned around. She was there, lips quirked at her previous statement. Also: naked.

Draco glanced at the mosaic. It pretended to be very involved in creating a small, koi-filled pond. He looked at Hermione. She smiled at him.

Okay, now he knew it was the mosaic.

"What's my favourite colour?" Draco asked Granger.

"Blue."

"What's 18,956 times 4,900?"

"Er."

"See," Draco said, turning to the mosaic, "you got the big picture right, but you're shit at the details." He unbuttoned his robes—the mosaic perked with interest—and walked into the loo, slamming the door in naked Granger's face. He'd take a shower, shave, and look at some picture books for … He paused with his belt in his hand, looked at his watch. Twenty-three hours and forty minutes.

He opened the door to stick his head out.

"Turn around," he barked at Granger. Blinking, but willing to play along by the expression on her face, she did, slowly, making it worth his mouth open little by little as her hips got into it.

Finally, after a millennium of dreaming, Draco saw Granger's naked bum.

He glanced at his watch after the show was over, swallowing. Twenty-three hours and thirty-seven minutes.

Merlin help him. It would take one long shower.

*

"Granger's avoiding me," Draco informed Blaise.

"Uh-huh." Blaise didn't look away from his report, fork halfway to his mouth and forgotten. "Avoiding me too."

Draco stared over his head, across the canteen at Hermione, chewing on a piece of flat bread like she was going to war. His frown would have sent his mother into a timely lecture on wrinkles. He turned his head, squinting. No, the view didn't get better. "You'd think she'd hand Boot a napkin for all he's drooling on her leg." He tilted his head the other way. "But is she avoiding you because she's avoiding _me_ , or is this another of her anti-Slytherin campaigns?"

Blaise's fork met a piece of asparagus. "You don't really still believe Hermione got Rita Skeeter sacked, do you? That's just a myth. Besides"—he waved his fork vaguely before viciously tearing off the asparagus—"she likes Boot or something. They've been dating for two months and a week now."

Draco knew it was myth. He'd been the one to tell it. Didn't mean it was any less true.

"She ran from me today," Draco said. His frown grew deeper when Hermione caught him watching and hastily looked away from him. "'Flee' would be more appropriate, actually. She _fled_ from me."

"I'm sure." Blaise sounded amused. "Heard you tried to destroy the mosaic in the C-Room."

Draco focused on his plate as he picked up his fork. "It was watching me."

"Uh-huh."

"You could have told me about the Unbreakable charms," he muttered.

"What's all this about Gr—Hermione, then?" His dark eyes considered him.

His ears cocked. His eyes stayed downward, the better to watch Blaise's fingers. "What's what about Granger?"

The fingers tightened around the fork, then released. Draco resisted the instinct to look at his face, but Blaise figured it out by his stillness anyway. He dropped his fork to bring both hands under the table. The silence waited, thought out the next move.

"I thought you were over your petty brain crush," Draco said, lifting his eyes to Blaise's.

Words lingered unsaid over the table. Draco could almost see their visible-invisible outline, like heat off a candle flame. But he didn't linger on them. He watched Blaise's face, the subtle half-millimeter glance to the left, the slight downward angle of his mouth.

"Hmm."

"What hmm? What kind of hmm was that?"

Alarm shot through him when he noticed Granger out of her seat, but she wasn't walking toward them. Just what they needed, Draco thought, for Granger to stick her head and big hair in. He sat back, wary, as she disappeared through the exit.

"Nothing." Draco shrugged, picking up his pumpkin juice. He wondered if Blaise knew just how hyperactive he sounded when he was rattled. Draco decided not to inform him. "Just hmm."

"It sounded like a something hmm." Blaise leaned forward a fraction. "Sounds like _you_ still make odes to Gr— _Hermione's_ perfect bum. That's what that hmm was."

"Says the wizard who created the second verse," Draco said.

"You _swore_ you wouldn't— oh, Harry, er-hello, I was just leaving, have my seat. _Malfoy._ "

Harry and Draco watched Blaise scoop up his tray and reports and hightail it to the exit. Draco sighed mentally. The sight of a Slytherin cornered always saddened him. Harry sat down carefully in Blaise's seat, as if it might have booby-traps.

"What was that?" Harry asked. He sounded half-curious, half-afraid of the answer. Good, he'd learned some precautions from working around Slytherins.

"Blaise was just admitting his long-held love for Granger," Draco said. "He wants to name the kids Crystal and Edgar."

Harry rolled his eyes as he unrolled his napkin. "Malfoy, why don't you just ask her out?"

Draco glared as he picked up his tray and stood. He turned smartly on his heel and left. He hoped Potter noticed his superb posture and ability to walk away—he could use a few lessons in those areas. Also, proper deathbed etiquette. That had been said in _confidence_ , in a cave as small as a cupboard and his innards resting on his chest. Besides, he'd said he wanted to shag Granger, not take her out dancing.

Ugh, Potter.

*

Hermione ate lunch in the loo the next day. It wasn't hiding. It was academic. She needed to find out whether the variable, location, changed how good her peanut butter and jelly sandwich was.

So far, the toilet lid was uncomfortable, it smelled like soap, and she couldn't stop concentrating on the dreams instead of stopping her jam from escaping the sandwich. Just like yesterday, except with no tables and Terry knocking on the door and calling for her.

It was very … _kind_ of him to, er.

Stalk her? Badger her every five minutes on the status of their relationship? She had started to regret using him as her Blaise-shield since, oh, five minutes in.

Hermione sighed and dropped her sandwich back in the Tupperware. She was being quite unfair to poor Terry. One would think hindsight would prohibit her from committing the same mistakes twice. Three words: _Slughorn's Christmas party._

And here she was, sitting in another washroom, hiding from two more boys.

Couldn't she ever like someone that _wasn't_ either like a cousin or … or Blaise and Malfoy. Honestly. She had _dozens_ of invitations last year—most of them from Weasleys, but still—so why did she have to focus on the ones that gave her goosebumps?

Blaise's teeth tugging her ear, his entire focus on her—she stopped and shook herself. It was no wonder, really, that she was attracted to the two former Slytherins. Blaise was handsome, _extremely_ so, and talented and destined to go places—well, one place up since Head Lason wouldn't die for another century—and highly respected in the Pureblood community. He was also funny, intelligent, and did she mention handsome?

Then there was Malfoy. According to every tawdry romance her mother housed under her nightstand, it was fact that the woman's anger was usually misdirected lust and the man's more so. Forgetting the _highly_ misogynistic and anti-feminist message in that, it could—maybe, a little bit, most likely—be why she held such a grudge against Malfoy. Jung and Freud would use phrases with more syllables, but that was the gist. He was also an Auror and to all accounts a _brilliant_ one. He had a Pureblood lineage going back to before Napoleon I was born, and the self-crowned prince of them, too. And sometime between fifth year and when he had finished Auror training, he had grown into his pointy, pale looks. Grown into was putting it lightly, however, according to how many he averaged to sleep with a year.

And she was just … well, she wasn't in that sphere. She wasn't _less than,_ of course. That would be impossible. She was far more intelligent than them both, and one could say she had certain popularity once the war ended. She also had several medals and a rapport with the Minister—along with a Life Debt from several key Ministry employees. She was just in a different sphere of influence, one with less … bloody history.

She scoffed and rolled her eyes at herself.

How silly was she? This wasn't even _probable_ and yet she had reduced herself to estimating the chances. Zero times zero—carry the zero, hm, oh right, it would be _zero._ She had advocated for _house-elves,_ for Merlin's sake!

Besides, it wasn't like she would _really_ let what happened in her dreams happen.

_Then why are you dreaming about it?_

She needed to get out. Do something. Start doing … what did normal people _do_ anyway? They did normal things all the time and were supposedly very pleased by them. Hermione considered what Ron did every weekend (pub crawling), then Harry's weekend activities (Quidditch), then Ginny before she became Mrs. Potter (dancing.)

"I'm going to die with a sofa full of cats," she muttered. She stuffed the paper bag into the bin. Terry had started his third set of knocks by the time Hermione yanked open the door.

*

Blaise knew something was up as soon as the flowers were delivered. No Unspeakable could afford a dozen hybrid gold and red roses from Longbottom's Plants without a massive loan from Gringotts. Except Blaise. He did the calculation at the top of his potion analysis. No, he could afford six Gryffindor roses without dipping into his investment portfolio.

"No card," Boot said. His hands were stuffed in his pockets like he would strangle the flowers otherwise. His expression soured as he looked from the flowers to Hermione back to the offensive flowers sparkling as proud as any Gryffindor. "You know who they're from?"

Blaise knew the answer before Hermione shook her head, staring wide-eyed at them. He knew of only one person who could afford it and was lunatic enough to use them as part of some plan when simple daises or daffodils would do. A wizard who had never looked up _conservative_ in a dictionary and thought a prudent person was Madam Pince from the library.

The curious stares from the other desks soon tapered off into the occasional glance over. Boot stomped back to his cubicle. Hermione adjusted the vase on her desk three times, sending annoyed looks Blaise's way when he kept watching her struggle to find a spot for them that didn't cover her work or get them in her face. Finally she placed them on the floor behind her desk. She sat down. They stared at each other across the short distance for a long moment. Would she finally break the silence?

She picked up her quill and resumed writing. A second after, so did he.

In Slytherin he had learned to see beyond the immediate. With Draco it was a must to any of his plans. In this case, the immediate was the flowers. He saw the reactions: Boot's suspiciousness; Hermione's hidden pleasure and plain-sight confusion; her hesitation with Boot. If Draco sustained these emotions in her for an extended period of time with a barrage of anonymous, plainly romantic gifts, it might leave Hermione off-kilter enough to believe Draco's advances toward her as genuine. The one assured result would be Hermione breaking off with Boot.

Not that Blaise thought Draco's advances would be anything but genuine. But they both knew Hermione wouldn't believe any advances Draco made without substantial proof. This way, though, Draco needn't give proof, just skip that step entirely. And then he'd get bored after a month of marathon shagging and he'd be obsessed with some other witch. It had happened with the female Weasley (he never could remember her name), Lovegood, Chang, and Katie Bell. Now Hermione.

There was definitely a theme there.

It wasn't Draco's fault, really. Draco was a product of his environment; his environment just happened to be parents giving him everything he desired and a set schedule from when he was six-months old to eleven years old and during holidays to keep his brain stimulated. Boredom, therefore, was dangerous. It made him join the Aurors, after all, and look how many times he'd almost been offed now compared to when he was sitting behind a desk at Malfoy Inc. So, yes, he was genuinely infatuated with Hermione— _now_. It was a challenge now, and then it would morph into hot sex with the Muggleborn High Queen, and then the shine would wear off her crown and he'd realize he really only liked blondes and maybe he should send that girl in accounting an owl.

There were two options here. Okay, three, but he didn't count Boot as a viable option— _Boot_ probably didn't count himself as a viable option. Blaise was being realistic here.

Option A: Blaise could leave Draco to it. That left him with options 1a, keep Hermione at a long distance forever and 1b, pick up the pieces when Draco dumped her.

Option B: Blaise could disrupt it. 2a, see if she looked as good naked as he dreamed, or down to 2b, crash and burn, which lead him back to Option A.

Theoretically, it was a win-win situation.

I am insane, he wrote where he was supposed to leave his signature. Insane, insane, insane.

*

"Here, let me help you."

"No, no, I have it—"

Blaise easily adjusted the vase in his arms where Hermione had almost suffocated with the petals up her nose. It came down to height—or more appropriately, up. She dropped her arms, which ached, and smiled, uneasy but cautiously thankful.

"Thanks," she said. "It was a little heavier than I counted on."

"If only the Dumbs didn't think Levitation Charms were Dark magic," Blaise said, shaking his head. Hermione's smile grew; she'd missed the nickname. He slowly turned his head side to side. "Where's the boyfriend?"

"Oh, um, he left early, I guess." Hermione arranged her papers in her arms and started for the door. Blaise kept by her side, the roses waving almost playfully with the movement. She cleared her throat and sent him a close-lipped smile. "You're here late."

"Needed the overtime," Blaise said. "You look like you're coming along with that Orb from the fey, despite everything."

"Despite me getting my hand ripped off by a rogue shard? I suppose," she said dryly. Blaise chuckled. "No, it's coming along very well actually, now that the introductions are over. Congratulations on zombie 2.0. I heard it has its own containment room."

She shouldn't have said that word. It brought up memories, memories she'd rather have, oh, _never_. Memories of Blaise’s teeth tugging on her ear, of Draco's mouth sliding over the curve of her breast, fingers memorizing, hands cradling, caressing touches—everywhere. Her hips arching, her knees buckling, on an infinite precipice between pleasure and too much.

Ahem. She brought that train of thought to a screeching halt as they entered the entrance to the department. Hermione closed the door after them. The room went dark for two seconds before the torches along the wall flared. The whites in Blaise's eyes reflected, cat-like. His focus on her stilled her as the walls spun around them. The torches left blue afterimages, Blaise's eyes left the hair on her arms standing. He licked his lips. Hermione opened her mouth to take a shallow breath.

The room stopped spinning.

"Exit," she said, and her voice was a whisper. The door beside them opened and Blaise's eyes gave way to his expression, which made her chest constrict with the want that he matched.

"You should—" Blaise cleared his throat, glanced away. The moment—whatever that moment had been, Hermione was sure she'd dreamed it to go along with her delusions from the containment room. He shifted the flowers. "You, er, go ahead," he said. "I forgot something at my desk."

"Oh! Okay," she said, jarred and suddenly conscious of the direction her thoughts had taken. She took the vase out of his hands with a Levitation Charm, holding open the door with the hand not holding her wand. "Do you – " She stopped and looked at the vase. She looked at him. His Adam's apple jumped. Maybe she hadn't been mistaken about the emotion in his eyes. She hesitated, before taking a wild leap."Did you …?"

He said nothing. He didn't have to. The way he bit his lip, something she'd never seen him do before in all their years working together, said everything.

"Thank-thank you, Blaise. I don't know quite what to say."

A pause. Blaise stared at her left earlobe. "You don't have to say anything." For all his nervousness, his lips curved upward. He looked almost … shy. Merlin, _she_ made Blaise _shy_? What universe was this and how was she transported here?

Of course, she'd had the mad thought earlier when the flowers were delivered and the memory of Blaise and Malfoy from the dreams that had plagued her ever since the C-Room had reared up to show its head. From what she'd overheard, these Gryffindor roses were some of the most expensive flowers on the market. Twelve of them impossibly so. She was aware of every person she was friendly with who could afford these. Blaise had been at the top of her list, right after Harry. But Harry wouldn't send these kinds of flowers to _her_. She'd assumed that Blaise wouldn't either. Obviously, she'd been wrong. (The other person: no possible way or Lust Potion.)

For once, it felt nice to be wrong. More than nice. Scary in an exhilarating, discovered another secret tunnel in Hogwarts, but without the Harry-and-Ron, adventure way. But maybe this tunnel would lead to treasure instead of basilisks. She pushed the door when it tried to close, unable to take her eyes off Blaise.

She tried to hold back her nervous smile. "Do you want to walk me to the Floos?"

Blaise perked up. "Yeah," he breathed. He laughed and cleared his throat again. "Yes," he repeated in his normal voice. His smile was – it was. Hermione bit her lip and looked down from the delight in his eyes. "I'd like that very much."

With a click, the door closed behind them.

*

"You missed the Quidditch game."

"Something came up!" Blaise yelled over the spray of the shower. Draco set down Blaise's practice quaffle and strolled into the bathroom. Blaise saw him through the sheer curtain, jumped, and almost fell when the curtain slid sideways under his weight. "Merlin!" With a vicious mutter, he started scrubbing the soap out of his eyes. "I'm a little busy, Malfoy."

Draco hitched his hip onto the counter. Looking around, he picked up a bottle off the counter and sniffed the cap. He grimaced and set it aside. "Is this about you being gay for me?" he asked, perusing the rest of the bottles. They all had names like Envy and Obsession. It was like an advertisement for the worldly sins. "Do you honestly still feel awkward about it? You know I swore I'd keep your secret to the coffin."

"If I recall correctly," Blaise said, and Draco would have sworn the steam coming out of the tub was from the hot water hitting his words, "you stuck your tongue down my throat first."

"Can you blame a fifteen year old boy?" Draco hid his smirk by wrinkling his nose at another bottle. Magnificence. He turned the bottle around, letting the blue liquid inside tilt and whirl. It actually seemed familiar—didn't he wear this shit when he was fifteen? It smelled like death's formal robes. He shook his head and put it back. Maybe he should blame the fifteen year old boy, especially if his taste ran to Magnificence. "Eugh. I'd like to go back and kick my pathetic arse, you know."

"I think we all want to do that," Blaise said, shaking his head under the spray.

"What mistakes did you make that you'd want to go back to kick your own arse?"

"Not mine," Blaise said. "Yours."

Draco chose another bottle. Liberty. "Can't fault you there."

"Is this conversation over? Can I shower in peace now?"

"I was wondering."

Blaise's sigh rattled the shower curtain. "Yeah?" he said finally. The view was blurry and steamy, but Draco watched the slow ripple of the muscles in Blaise's back come to life as he reached up to adjust the spray. Draco had never envied another wizard quite like he envied Blaise and his back. He wanted a back like that, a back that knew what was up, a back you could imagine in a number of situations, a back that always looked good in those situations.

"What is it?" Blaise asked impatiently. "What're you wondering?"

Draco took his time to pick up Greed. "Saw you and Granger last night," he said. "Just wondering what you ordered. It looked good. Tapas, maybe? It looked like tapas." Greed smelled sort of good. Draco dabbed a drop on his palm. It reminded him of seeing Nagini's head chopped off by Longbottom. That had been a good moment. He pursed his lips at the bottle in approval. Maybe he'd get a bottle.

"No." He almost couldn't hear Blaise over the water. "Paella. It had chorizo."

"See, that's what's wrong with stakeouts nowadays. You just can't tell _what_ the mark's doing unless you're on top of him. What if he's trading illegal potions, what if it's just a kitten, what if it's paella and not tapas?" He shook his head and dropped the bottle onto the counter with a clang of glass meeting metal. "I told Potter this was important."

"Stakeout?" Blaise asked. His voice was a little higher, a little more indignant instead of trapped.

Draco shot that down. "Permanent Granger-watch," he said and hopped off the counter. "Trust me, I didn't ask for it. A smidgeon too neurotic and obsessive, even for me. You know, what I'm _really_ wondering is why you decided to go after her now. Out of all those years, just steps away from her desk, you choose now. When you knew I wanted her."

"Like you want the Snitch?" Blaise snorted. He saw him shaking his head, his bicep flexing as he turned off the shower with a vicious twist that made the metal screech. "How many times have you caught it, Draco?"

The muscle under his left eye twitched. Without extending any effort, he controlled it, and was there to hand Blaise his towel as he stepped out of the shower. Water fell off Blaise's body, pooled on the floor. The liquid in Envy matched the red veins in Blaise's eyes. With a sharp tug, Blaise took the towel and wrapped it around his waist. He left a trail of water as he walked out of the bathroom. His back stayed tensed, rolling like a tiger's in the jungle. Draco followed.

"Aren't you tired of trying to redeem yourself, Draco?" Blaise asked, dropping the towel after he pulled on a pair of black briefs. His jaw was as tight as his back when he turned around. "Sleeping your way to Heaven? Gr—Hermione doesn't need a charity case."

Draco raised his eyebrows. He looked Blaise up and down, head to toe. Blaise's jaw got tighter and tighter as the seconds passed. Draco made sure to enunciate. "And yet."

"I like her, Draco," Blaise said, unblinking and _please._

Draco curled his tongue against his cheek. Looked away from the beseeching expression Blaise gave him. He was being played. Beautifully, he might add. It sparked a flame of pride in him. _I gave him this. See the pupil outgrow the master._

"You tell her to put wards on her curtains," Draco said, taking out his watch. "She could catch cold with them open all night. And I beg you not to let her see your collection of body oil. It's disturbing."

"Wait – where are you going?"

"Some of us don't have jobs of leisure to fall back on," Draco called over his shoulder as he took the stairs two at a time.

*

Granger was about as exciting as a pygmy puff. A pygmy puff with a large mouth and quite sharp teeth ready to swallow him whole. So: pretty exciting. Even more exciting naked and sitting on his knees. Triple that when Granger sat mere yards away, glaring murder at him.

"That lab should really put a sign up that says it's not a loo," Draco told the Hermione sitting on his knees.

"It clearly said Highly Toxic: Beware," Granger snarled from the opposite sofa. "How did you even get _in_ the department? Aren't you banned for life?" The other Granger began tugging at his robes.

Original Hermione stopped glaring to rub her eyes. She dropped her hands, furrowing her brow as she watched Draco's robes unbutton themselves. She looked as confused as a niffler with a mountain of fool's gold—though unfortunately, not as ecstatic.

Granger no. 2 (and wouldn't it be _so much better_ if she was the original?) slipped the fourth button out of its hole and traced her nails over the skin she'd exposed.

"Malfoy," Original said—even if they were both naked on his lap (Merlin, don't think that, don't think that) he would be able to tell her apart from her very, extremely, immensely naked double the mosaic had brought out of his mind.

"Yes, Hermione?" Draco asked the one on his knees.

"Why—why are you smiling? What are you smiling at? Did you just call me Hermione? And you smiled. I saw it." Hermione almost somersaulted she got off the sofa so fast, head twisting every which way as she looked around the C-Room. "There's a bomb, isn't there? We're all going to die. Or some sort of gas, or maybe the _potion_ , the disinfectant potion. It's been contaminated."

Draco put his hands on 2.0's hips and turned his head to look at Hermione. "Has this neurotic madwoman always lived under your skin or do you just bring her out to play on special occasions?"

Hermione ignored him, poking at a vent with her wand. "It's the potion, right? That's why you wanted down here—some sort of undercover operation or, or. Harry told me, you know. He told me."

He retracted his hands from 2.0's skin, sat up, which almost threw her off his lap. Draco didn't give a fig. He growled, "Potter told you what, exactly?"

Hermione faced him. Her eyes were as big as one of those annoying terriers. Her face had paled three shades, and she was staring in that victim of the apocalypse way at her twin on his lap.

"Harry told me you turned nice when you were near-death," she said. Her eyes trailed back to the naked twin. She swallowed. "I-I-." She pulled herself together and her eyes away from the Hermione wiggling on his lap. She folded her hands together and closed her eyes. "We're all going to die."

Draco scoffed. "We're not going to die."

She opened her eyes to glare at him. "Well, I hope there's memory damage, at _least_." She turned away to face the mosaic, which paused mid-wave. She started a breathing exercise. Hee-hoo-hee-hoo.

Draco faced her wonder twin, glanced at his watch on the way, and decided that this was a great start, considering. The She-Weasley—now the She-Potter—had been so much easier. Not as fun, naturally, but easier, definitely. The paranoia had been far worse.

*

How long since they had been thrown in here? Three, four hours? Hermione had been watching other Hermione writhe and lick and touch Malfoy for forever. And Malfoy just let her. Not that he could see her, but still. She had thought he'd have a little loyalty to their mutual hatred at least when it was her own delusion.

Blue waves watched her, crashed against the glass beach and waited for her to implode from the force of her insanity. Hermione's ribs ached from her deep breaths. A human being wasn't meant to breathe this deep, to the surface underneath their lungs. It wasn't even calming. She could see reflections in the glass. Other Hermione's hands pressed her breasts together. Other Hermione's tongue came out to trace Malfoy's lower lip. Other Hermione's mouth opened when her hand dipped between her thighs.

She choked on the _hee_ of the hee-hoo. Screw this.

Hermione put her head in her hands and tried to think good thoughts. The Louvre. The New York Public Library. Rainy mornings when she came late to work, having forgotten herself on her sofa by the window. Draco's hands freeing her hair from its tight bun.

No. No. Wrong good thoughts. Bad ones. Not hers at all. Probably the tart on Dr— _Malfoy's_ lap, hers not Hermione's.

She peeked through her fingers.

Malfoy's hand spread across her stomach; his hair, a tad on the long side now, grazed the sofa back as he looked up at her.

Slowly, she recovered her eyes. This was not good. This was worse than not good. This was bad on an astronomical scale.

This was another Voldemort.

"No," Draco said, rubbing his lips against the shell of her ear. His fingers curled over her shoulders, down the front of her robes, buttons popping open like small explosions where he pulled.

She turned her head to find the sofa empty, other Hermione gone. Had that Draco been a figment of her imagination, too? Maybe the whole _room_ was her imagination. Maybe she was really in St. Mungo's, struggling to come out of a coma. That was always how it happened in her grandmother's 'stories.' Soon she would wake up and find this had all been a dream.

Any second now…

She opened her eyes and fifty turquoise glass pieces crashed against a white beach.

Somewhere in the real world, she was asleep in a hospital bed. Until she could wake up, she was here.

Or was she really here? Was the hospital room some kind of psychotic delusion to help her cope with the realities of the situation?

Situation being Draco's lips tickling her neck.

_With lips as soft as clover._

Hermione shut her eyes. This had to be a dream, a delusion brought on by all the disinfectant spells. It was known to cause similar symptoms in concentrated doses. Hallucination, shortness of breath, mild to moderate dizziness. All the things she was experiencing. So maybe Draco _wasn't_ here. In fact, she couldn't think of a reason why he _would_ be here, though she did remember an explosion of some…

"It's not cheating if he hasn't even kissed you yet."

"I." Her eyes shot open. The rocking gentleness, his soft lips, the dizziness—ripped away in an instant.

_I wasn't thinking of him._ She'd almost said it. But that she hadn't once thought of Blaise didn't concern her. The fact that this was _Malfoy_ and _real_ and _Malfoy_ , however, did. Because why would her delusion assure her she wasn't cheating?

_So what are you going to do about it?_ she asked herself.

"You mean it's not cheating if I want it too, Draco," Blaise said. Hermione jumped and spun, dislodging Malfoy's hands from her shoulders. Blaise leaned against the wall by the entrance, his robes nowhere in sight and the top three buttons of his shirt unbuttoned. It wasn't even leaning, what he did against that wall. He _luxuriated_ against it, and the smirk on his lips offered her the same indulgence.

"Wuh—" She looked from Malfoy back to Blaise. "Did you _plan_ this?"

"Well, it definitely wasn't an accident," Blaise said.

"This is a government building," Hermione said. "That's – that's entirely against regulations. Seventy-two and a half, to be exact, and I'm not counting addendums."

"Aren't you cute," Draco said and slid his hands over her hips. He put his lips next to her ear, and in addition to hair being crushed between their heads, his – she couldn't even think it, with him so close, blocking out the receptors in her brain – it was pressed against her bum. He turned his head, slid his nose along the edge of her jaw. "Bet you a kiss Blaise blacked out that window before he came in." Cold air brushed her jawline and kissed her neck. "Ask him, why don't you?"

Hermione opened her eyes—when had she closed them? Blaise was ten feet closer, and the contrast of white against black, his teeth digging into his lips, made her want to close them again.

"Citing rules already?" he asked her, step and step coming closer, like lava inching toward a helpless village. "You haven't even told us that it's immoral and unbecoming. Unless you're one of those progressive witches?"

"Please tell us you're one of those progressive witches," Draco murmured and _rubbed_ against her.

"I-It's not – I think a witch can do – can do what she wants," Hermione stuttered, breathing shallowly as Draco's hands came up her front and finished the job of opening up her robes. Each button opened made a tiny popping noise, exactly like the explosions in her brain. "What is socially acceptable isn't – oh my."

Blaise put his fingers under her chin and tilted her head until she was staring into his eager eyes. "Isn't what?" he asked, and covered her lips with his before she had an answer. His hands met Draco's at her shoulders and together they dragged off her heavy, stifling robes. Except the stifling thickness of the air didn't stop with the removal of her robes, only increased as Draco plastered himself to her back and—she thought they were his, and how absolutely terrifying-exhilarating-momentous was it that she didn't _know?_ —Blaise's hands strayed under her comfy shirt. It was a quiet, subdued stretch of time, hot breaths exchanged and echoing down her bloodstream and Draco sucking all logical thoughts out of her neck, his fingers digging into her hips, making tight, obscene circles against her bum.

She had a brief thought of _he's stretching my shirt_ and then both Draco and Blaise pulled back and Draco's hands slithered under her arms, then up them as he raised them. The shirt went and then Hermione did, Blaise turning her and Draco catching up where he left off. Round and round, and Hermione kept spinning because if she stopped she would never finish this. Draco inserted his thigh between hers, pulled first one arm then the other around his neck, twisting the frenzied possession into slow, boiling personal heat. He was everywhere, his hands bunching her skirt around her hips, thigh pressing tight to her core, heating her from outside in.

All except one part that stayed frozen, an iceberg in the middle of the Grand Canyon. It curled around her chest, snuck along unguarded veins, reached the part of her psyche that said _I shouldn't_ , and agreed. Blaise's lips sliding down her spine, his tongue outlining the edge of her bra, didn't make a difference to the cold arctic air circulating through her system.

Draco pulled back, and Hermione took a much needed breath. This wasn't her at all.

And fantastic kisses didn't make up for Malfoy being a gigantic twat.

"It's—" She began.

"A bed, right?" Draco caught her lower lip between his and bit gently. "I know."

Hermione prepared to reply, but he stepped back and his eyes were scrutinizing her front like a new Oriental rug and she couldn't say anything after seeing that about to burst expression fighting with painful lust on his face.

A thin layer of ice settled over her arms, pulling all the hairs straight. Her bra snapped open, helped along by Blaise. Hermione gasped as her skin turned even colder as he pushed it down off her shoulders. The cotton barely made a noise when it hit the floor by her feet.

"I'm—I'm—"

Hands gliding up her back and over her shoulders, he pulled her into his chest. He nuzzled her hair like some great kitten, except no kitten she knew would nibble on her neck like _that._ She made a noise, her brain fogging up like morning. He strayed under her skirt, slip-teased-raised the hem of her knickers between her thighs, pads of his fingers blurring the haze of her memory.

"I – um." Her throat ached as she swallowed. Blaise let her go as she pulled away. She crossed her arms over her breasts, turning to face him, mortification burning her cheeks. Blaise's hands stilled mid-air.

"Hermione?"

"I don't think…" Horror flashed across Blaise's face and then it shut down entirely. Her throat closed.

"I didn't—if you want to leave—"

"I'm just not this kind of—"

"—go get lunch instead or—"

"Blaise." His mouth closed with a snap. She put her hand on his elbow, the only safest place, considering. She lowered her voice. "This isn't me, Blaise."

"Why is that?" Heat like a furnace warmed her back. _Blast._ But Draco didn't touch her, or make a move to, and the nerves bunching her shoulders relaxed; her regard raised a notch.

"I'm just not—" Bile soured her mouth; she puckered her lips, hating that she couldn't do this when she—oh, did she—wanted to so bad. The chance of the lifetime and she was hiding under the table like some Hufflepuff—no, like _Smith_. She looked away from Blaise's gentle, sympathetic eyes. "I can't do this. I can't. I'm sorry."

"Is it Malfoy?" Blaise asked. "We can kick him out."

Draco snorted. "Typical Zabini. Swoop in after I do all the hard work."

She kept her head down, laughing softly behind her fretted lip. She admired them, really, how they would descend to ribbing each other for the sake of her comfort. Especially when her personal bubble issues had stalled what looked like a really good seduction plan. Get her into a comfort zone as Blaise, the more personally attractive of the two, buttered her up for a few weeks, and then introduce Draco, the more volatile considering their relationship, in a confined room—along with some hallucinatory spells—and finally the surprise factor when Blaise showed up. Oh, yes, it was a beautiful plan.

Pity she had ruined it.

"What was it you said before?" Blaise rolled his hands in the air as if that would speed up her memory process. "Socially acceptable …"

"That doesn't have anything to do with this," Hermione said, uneasiness lining her voice when a first look over didn't make her shirt immediately appear. She knew where her _bra_ was, but she would like her shirt—and her robes, wherever they were.

"Just very quickly, tell us," Blaise said, and retrieved her bra and handed it back.

"Oh, okay." She felt funny taking her bra from Blaise, but Blaise's face stayed calm, welcoming, like October days. "The socially acceptable path is no longer the _only_ path for women."

"And that's not what's bothering you?" Draco asked, his voice merely inquiring, no accusation.

She looked down. She didn't want to tell them she had thought herself not good enough. Hermione could predict the outcome based on their previous responses. The only way to prove it would be to prove it to herself, to face it head on and kick it in the bum. She _was_ good enough—better than, just look at her marks and record breaking Charms score.

But grades didn't matter here. Touch and kiss and moans did, and she was with two of the most intimidating professors.

"What is it?" Blaise urged again, nudging her hand, still holding the bra, to put it on.

Hermione extended her arm to the side, and dropped the bra. She stared at Blaise all the while. Adrenaline like ice water rushing through her veins, she kissed Blaise. Hard, because she meant it, and because she was afraid of what she would do if she _didn't._ Blaise, hesitant at first, then more confident when she didn't pull away, quickly ceded control, and his fiber-deep groan reverberated in her gut. He bent down, taking her with him, and when he lifted, fingers digging into the flesh of her bum, she wrapped her legs around his waist, glad to be in control of the ride.

The fell to the bed in an uncoordinated jumble, most likely due to her reaching between them and squeezing the hardness pressed against her leg through his trousers. She landed on top of him, knees on either side, grinning wow, _she_ made Blaise undone. She looked over her shoulder and Draco was right there, and when he kissed her his grin mingled with hers and she could only think do it if you're going to do it or lose your nerve.

She unbuckled Blaise's belt.

Then they were naked, or mostly so, and she had seen the muscles corded in Blaise's neck, his head thrown back and his hips arching up, and she had started to think they had a real fetish with her bum, since neither of them could – stop – touching it, or just a Hermione in general fetish, since everywhere she turned there were hands, or mouths, and her parents would be able to make a cast out of the bite-mark on her left bum cheek.

There were _ohs_ and Draco sliding up her body like his House mascot, and his palms meetings hers and pushing down and out of control and still fully there, thrown in the waves with an anchor attached to her ankle. And there was no wondering, no fear but brief ones about the logistics of two men, one woman, because Blaise and Draco were like paid professionals, and their eyes like flash floods. She didn't care how they got there, as long as they did.

Draco's kisses were charged with lightening, and made her lift her head to get more; her cheeks hot as he said _fuck_. She kept listening, kept meeting his hips with hers, his grin Cheshire against her neck, _fuck you slow, fuck you until your eyes cross._

And it was _Malfoy_ and it was _Draco_ and Merlin she wanted both</i> gentle, terrible, perfectly flawed sides of him. Her hips couldn't stop moving to meet his, ached to get to him, more of him, and her breath stuttered out in painful bursts, her legs trembling against his calves because he was there, just there, and he wouldn't _stop_ touching it and it was almost there and it wasn't—and he wouldn't give her what she wanted so badly, and that was all of him, or was it too much?

Blaise got his second wind back and he ducked under Draco's arm, turning her head away from Draco's to meet his. Tastes mingled together like his and her towels in the wash. Blaise pulled back and used his hands for something far less socially acceptable. Draco moaned and then Hermione did. She looked down, between their bodies, and her mouth dropped open as Draco's head dropped to her chest, blocking that – that oh my God – _view_ , his voice edging along pain as he groaned and thrust harder. "Bloody – fuck, Blaise," he said, and worried her neck between his teeth.

"Don't want a slow fuck," Blaise said, and Hermione gasped as the next thrust sent her sliding up the bed.

"Fuck you." Draco gasped again; face tight as he tried to regain his lost control and Blaise disappeared from beside them and reappeared over Draco's shoulder, smirking down at her to join in his mischievousness. Whatever he did—and Hermione could imagine and _did_ and oh my God—Draco swore. It sounded like French for bastard, but spit through Draco's clenched teeth so she couldn't make it out.

"You wish," Blaise murmured against his neck, watching Hermione watch him with eyes like the calm of the storm. Merlin, Draco and Blaise, Blaise and Draco. She wanted to wrap her mind around it, but said mind kept overflowing like a wooden boat in a monsoon. The pulse in her stomach, the one ton anchor that kept growing heavier the more pressure they added to it—the steel chain snapped and Hermione threw her head back, her moan washed away by Draco's distracted, shuddering groan into her mouth, blue and white glass exploded together on the wall over his shoulder. His fingers curled against hers just as his body did.

They shared breaths for a long second, his nose cutting into her cheek and his chest as warm as the beach, before he pulled away, and out, and collapsed face first onto the space beside her, limbs still sprawled over hers.

"Just like Hogwarts," Blaise said, thick with satisfaction, and kissed her cheek before laying down on her other side. He was the most composed of the three of them, and showed off his poise by propping up on his elbow as they panted to get their breath back.

"No fair," Draco said, voice muffled in the pillow. "I wasn't expecting it."

"How about a redo?" She released a surprised moan when his fingers slipped between her legs, spreading around the moisture he found there, hers and Draco's.

"I'm not—" Draco stopped as he lifted his head, as he caught sight of Hermione's face. He blinked, swallowed, and a breath like a tiny hole appearing in a dam escaped his mouth. He looked at Blaise. "You first."

Hermione didn't resist him turning her to face Draco, or the brief, hot flash of pain in her womb from the second Contraception Spell, or Blaise's murmured, "Wouldn't have it any other way."

*

Twenty-four hours came.

They went.

Hermione went back home, to her safe and comfortable flat. Blaise followed her out of the Ministry. They had the whole weekend free. Draco lagged behind complaining about the lack of Mediterranean take-outs in the area. Blaise looked back at him and said: "You're a selfish bastard, you know."

Draco pulled his hat lower on his head. "I don't make the rules for bucket lists, Blaise."

Thirty levels under the lowest level of the Ministry, the mosaic waited.


End file.
